I have been struggling this week, trying to think of new ideas for food to feed Jacob.  As you may remember Jacob has food allergies; many many food allergies and it is making it tough for me to feed him as he is getting pickier.  To be precise, he is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish… he is also eating gluten-free because of my celiac disease.  Well, picky toddlers are hard enough to feed without all of these added restrictions and I was really starting to run out of ideas.  But this week I asked some friends for ideas, researched some things on the internet, and went back through my recipe books.  I still don’t feel like my repertoire is big enough but it is growing at least.

When I was at Whole Foods a couple of days ago, I was searching for tahini to make Jake a new hummus recipe.  Well, because tahini is sesame paste it is with the peanut butter, an area of the grocery store I don’t usually look at because he is allergic.  Right next to the tahini I discovered Sunbutter, sunflower seeds that are ground up into a peanut butter like substance.  I thought I’d give it a try, and brought it home and it’s really not too different from peanut butter.  It tastes a little more like sunflower seeds, but still delicious (I love peanut butter).  Jake would only barely try it the day I brought it home, but later I gave it to him on apples and he loved it!  As you can see he went to town with it.

For anyone else in the same boat as our family, here is our list of snack ideas so far:

Sunbutter with apples, crackers, celery, etc.

Mary’s Gone Crackers – Jacob really likes these and they have whole flax and sesame seeds so I think are pretty healthy.  They do contain soy however if that is a concern.

Hummus with crackers, chips, or vegetables – I started with hummus and crackers for him and now he loves hummus.  I’ve now started putting the hummus on vegetables and he pretty much just picks the hummus off and eats it, but he’s eating a little bit of the broccoli and cauliflower which I think is a good thing.

Hummus with vegetables mixed in – I cooked some spinach and processed it in a food processor and mixed it in with his hummus yesterday and he looked at it funny for a minute or two, and then ate it just like normal!  I’ve seen some other ideas to mix pureed beets or carrots into hummus also but haven’t tried it.

Popcorn – I pop it myself over the stove with some canola or corn oil and then add seasoned salt.  Some websites say popcorn is a choking hazard so be careful with this.  I always pick out the unpopped hard pieces before I give it to him.

Roasted pumpkin or squash seeds – We’ve had a lot of winter squash this winter and I always roast the seeds because Jake will actually eat them.

Fruit – He won’t always eat plain fruit cut up, but every once in a while he will.

Breakfast smoothies – We have these for breakfast almost every morning, we no longer add the protien powder, but have started adding liquid probiotics to them which studies are starting to show may help reduce food allergies

Kale chips – I made some this morning and then saw this recipe with paprika and garlic on them which looks pretty tasty.  Jake actually likes kale this way, so it’s a good way for him to get some greens.

Chips or crackers and salsa -  Jacob loves salsa!  He’ll even eat plain canned tomatoes if I tell him it’s salsa…. sometimes you have to resort to trickery to get kids to eat!

Avocado – Jake went through a phase where he was eating 2 whole avocados  a day!  He won’t eat that much anymore but still loves it, and it’s really easy to cut one up.  I just read that if you have half an avocado left if you refrigerate it with the pit and some lemon juice on top it will keep better and keep it from browning as much.  They are expensive so I’m excited to try this.

Dried fruit – These are almost like chips, crunchy and sweet and usually just have the fruit and maybe cinnamon as an ingredient.  These are a big hit in our house.

I think that about covers the snacks he eats now.  Please let us know if you have any other good ideas, and to my friends that already helped contribute ideas thank you, we’ll be trying the recipes soon!!

Around Wednesday of last week Jacob started coming down with something and I took him to the doctor on Thursday to find out he had an ear infection and respiratory syncytial virus.  When adults get RSV they usually think they have a bad cold, but it can be worse for kids causing dehydration or wheezing (luckily Jacob has had neither thus far).  Well, Wednesday night Jake was up all night screaming resulting in Jeremy and I trading off staying up with Jacob.  Jeremy ended up with about five hours of sleep and I ended up with about three.  Of course, having no sleep, Thursday night I started getting sick and Friday night so did Jeremy.  We’ve been trying to rest up and drink plenty of liquids and we are all starting to feel better.

All weekend we didn’t feel like cooking and luckily had some frozen meals in the basement from this summer that we could heat up.  But after a few meals, we had exhausted what sounded good in the freezer.  We couldn’t really duck out and grab to go food now that I have to eat gluten free, so while I was putting Jake down for a nap, Jeremy made me some comfort food here at home.   We had grilled cheese and tomato soup from a box and it was all quite tasty.  To those of you that don’t have to eat gluten free, this probably doesn’t sound to hard to figure out, but good gluten free bread is hard to find, and canned or boxed soups and broths are notorious  for containing gluten.

So how did we pull this off?  By using Udi’s Gluten Free bread and Imagine Foods Organic Creamy Tomato Soup.

Udi's Gluten Free Bread and Imagine Tomato Soup

First of all, I love Udi’s gluten free bread.  It is made here in Denver by a bakery that makes regular bread as well, but they also have a dedicated facility for their gluten free bread.  It is by far the best gluten free bread that I’ve found in the grocery stores.  It is very easy for me to find in the store around here , since it is local, but unfortunately it is not easy to find in other areas.   Some Whole Foods stores carry it, and when I was at my parents house in Edmond, OK for Christmas my sister who lives in Tulsa brought some home from the Whole Foods there.   I haven’t tried the whole line of Udi’s gluten free products, but the white bread makes really tasty grilled cheeses.

The tomato soup we had was Imagine Foods tomato soup from a box, which is allergy and gluten free and ended up being really tasty.    Even Jacob with his multiple food allergies can eat this soup, but even if you aren’t on a restricted diet like our family, this soup tasted really good and is natural and organic.  Be warned though, you can only get about two bowls of soup out of the box.  On Sunday, I wished we had another box to heat up.

So, there you have it, our gluten free comfort food for when you are sick, or just not feeling like cooking.  When I was at the store today I grabbed another box of the tomato soup so we’ll have it when the need arises again!